St. John’s is back in the Associated Press top 25.
On the strength of a six-game winning streak, the surging Johnnies returned to the national rankings at No. 25 on Monday.
The Red Storm began the season a program-best No. 5, fell out of the top-25 on Dec. 22, but are now back nearly a month later.
St. John’s (15-5, 8-1) is in contention to win a second straight Big East regular season title, trailing first-place and second-ranked Connecticut by just one game. The rivals meet twice in February, Feb. 6 at the Garden and Feb. 25 in Hartford, Conn. Before the first meeting with the Huskies, St. John’s hosts Butler on Wednesday and goes to DePaul the following Tuesday.
After an ugly home loss to disappointing Providence at MSG dropped St. John’s to 9-5 overall, coach Rick Pitino said his team’s backs were against the wall. Since, the Johnnies haven’t lost. He went to a big lineup featuring Dillon Mitchell-Zuby Ejiofor-Bryce Hopkins that has since dominated the conference.
In this six-game winning streak, St. John’s has gone 4-0 on the road. The Red Storm have won their first five road games to start the season for the first time since the 1982-83 campaign, and have recorded eight straight conference wins on the road, the most by any program in the league since Villanova rattled off 13 in a row from Jan. 31, 2015 to Feb. 9, 2016.
This past week, the Johnnies rallied from a 15-point deficit against Seton Hall and 16-point deficit at Xavier. In the latter victory, Pitino earned the 900th on-court victory of his Hall of Fame career.
“When your team, with that type of crowd, doesn’t bend, doesn’t break, just keeps staying in there, it’s remarkable how they’re playing right now,” Pitino said after the milestone win. “So I’m really proud of them.”
One major change has been on the defensive glass. In St. John’s first nine games against high-major opponents, it was getting crushed on the boards, collecting just 60.1 percent of available defensive rebounds, well below the national average. During this win streak, that number has shot up to 75.7 percent. In wins over Butler, Creighton, Marquette and Xavier, the Johnnies have allowed a total of only 11 second-chance points.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
